Now, how about asking Novell to create a new mail list called
opensuse-kde3 for all you enthusiasts so that you can have your own
sand-box for KDE3? :-)

It's not like the current KDE list is overfull with posts on it.

I must say that I'm amazed with this friction between KED3.5 and 4.x.
Any commercial company would give body parts to have a customer base
as loyal to KDE3.5 that apparently exists, yet it appears that the
open-source model is willing to abandon that loyalty. We've all
heard the reasoning for abandoning KDE3.5 for "the new paradigm", and
it certainly makes some sense to me, but the fact remains that there
are a lot of "customers" that just don't like what they see in KDE 4.x.

What is it about the open-source model that is happy as a clam to
simply tell that customer base to fsck off?

Maybe because they're not customers? (in the paying for a service sense)

Regards,
Lew

I see it in the opposite light.

It is because the people care about the "product" and they want to see
this "product" *improving* as time goes by and not "go backwards", when
someone attempts at trialling out his/her (not too well thought out)
concept in the real world.

If this was a "paid for" "product" then this is where people would
simply give up and move on to another one - "voting with their feet".

I think that Linux distros are lucky that they *do* have people who are
able to state their fors and againsts. Not only does this mean that
there are people who care about the "product" but it also keeps the
'devs' on their toes so as not to produce crap because they will be
kicked in the ass for doing so.

And I believe that this KDE vs KDE situation falls in the latter category.

Unfortunately, it appears that some people had their heads up in the
wrong 'whereabouts', and were allowed to have their way, and now we are
left with the situation of having this KDE vs KDE fiasco (as talked
about in this thread as well as its parent, An Old Story 6 Years On....)
- and there is simply no way of going back on it all. "Too late to shut
the barn doors" as they say.... :-( .

Like it or not, KDE4 is here to stay. KDE3 is "dead", but will be
embalmed and preserved by some enthusiasts for as long as possible -
just like the body of Lenin was for decades - until it is time to bury
it......